What is the current level of union representation of workers in Central and Eastern Europe?
Jasna Petrovic: There is a very low level of trade union density in CEE countries today In former Communist countries, all workers automatically became union members at the payment of their first wage, where their dues were checked off. The individual worker did not have a membership card or any idea of which branch federation he or she was actually a member. Trade unions had a role as shock-absorber of potential social unrest, and membership dues were pumped into social support programs at the company level: purchase of cheap meat and other sorts of food with favorable arrangements of payment, crediting of purchases of clothes, electrical appliances, excursions several times a year, free or subsidized holidays on the coast, etc. In the late 1980s, particularly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when the new trade unions started emerging, the majority of workers were asked, for the first time in their life, if they wanted to be union members. Many workers used this feeling of freedom,
